The Nordic Countries and the European Security and Defence Policy

THE INTERFACE OF EXTERNAL AND INTERNAL SECURITY 281immigrants. 70 Securing these functions is a prerequisite for upholding the valuesembodied by the European Union. This is not only a matter of maintaininginfrastructure but also concerns the functioning of national government and EUgovernance: the ability to lead society and to articulate political goals. 71 Earlyexperiences in EU-level civil protection have also revealed the strong role ofsymbolic goals. After September 2001 more than 1000 rescue workers from theEU member states were coordinated through the Community mechanism for theprotection of shipping across the Atlantic. 72 This was a strong manifestation ofEurope’s solidarity in matters of security with the USA. It helped to stress thatsecurity-relevant ‘functions’, in contrast to ‘territories’, are not delimited byspatial borders but are rather defined over time.The creation of EU infrastructures for safety, security and defence is not onlya question of coordinating the resources of the member states. New demandsare placed on the capacity and willingness of the EU member states to cooperateover a longer period of time. A common European outlook on threats andsecurity questions is now forming. The need to coordinate national civil andmilitary defence structures so that the resources of the member states and of theEU could be rapidly used has been recognized. Regional and local authorities—the backbone of civil crisis management and defence in many countries—needto be involved in such efforts. The solidarity clause on terrorism has demonstratedthe need for the member states to have linked or compatible multisectoralEU infrastructures that act to establish norms and standards. 73 Theseshould include national administrations as well as civil society, the privatesector, business and non-governmental organizations. This can only beachieved to a limited extent through EU legislation, central EU coordination orbinding commitments. The problems are similar to those encountered in otherareas where the EU has progressed from negative to positive integration: fromthe abolition of obstacles to cooperation to more active policy making forcommon goals. The aim of the solidarity clause on terrorism is—with the supportof the new civil and military crisis management tools—to transform theMasters thesis, Swedish National Defence College, Department of Security and Strategic Studies, Stockholm,and Uppsala University, Uppsala, 2004).70 Svantesson, M., ‘Threat images in the immigration policy of the EU: threat images as part of thesecuritization process’, Master thesis, Stockholm University, Department of Political Science, Stockholm,2004.71 Sundelius, B., ‘The seeds of a functional security paradigm for the European Union’, Paper presentedat the Second Pan-European Conference on EU Politics of the ECPR Standing Group on European UnionPolitics (note 37).72 de Wijk, R., ‘Civil defence and solidarity clause: EU homeland defence’, Paper prepared for theDirectorate-General for Research of the European Parliament, Brussels, 5 Jan. 2004.73 Jarlsvik, H., ‘Ett europeiskt krisberedskapssystem och dess nationella implikationer’ [A Europeancrisis-readiness system and its national implications], FOI memo 1081, Swedish Defence ResearchAgency, Stockholm, 2004, URL .